"Attain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many things somewhat awkward, impractical—and almost looks as though he could not devote himself to any productive and consistently carried-out form of activity. None the less is there in him a certain capacity and worth which, in a somewhat more regular position than he has yet been able to attain, would make him appear worth more. A more frequent application of a few utensils such as soak tooth-brush, and nail brush might also be recommended to him!—I expect much good to result from your influence on B.'s further ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... oblations, and contributions it collects from others than on its own demesne. As pride therefore is seldom without arrogance, so is this never to be found without insolence. The arrogant man must be insolent in order to attain his own ends; and, to convince and remind men of the superiority he affects, will naturally, by ill-words, actions, and gestures, endeavour to throw the despised person at as much distance ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... the other hand, I am satisfied, from talking with plantation owners in the South, with ranchmen in the West, and with woodsmen and hunters all over the country, that, in the remoter regions, many instances of poisoning by copperheads and the smaller rattlesnakes never attain the dignity of being listed, so insignificant are they in their effects. Were all these to be recorded, I believe that the mortality ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... to show elsewhere. In this paralysis, like a soldier shot as he is just gaining an eminence, the art of the seventeenth century struggled forward, and sank upon the spot it had been endeavoring to attain. The step which should have freed landscape from conventionalism was actually taken by Claude and Salvator Rosa, but taken in a state of palsy,—taken so as to lose far more than was gained. For up to this time, no painter ever had thought of drawing anything, pebble or blade of grass, ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit, and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew; Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. These pleasures, Melancholy, give, And I with thee ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... distance. Were you asked to leave this living of two thousand a year—I see that is what they put it at in Crockford—with its English comforts and easy work, that you might lead that life and attain that death, then you would think differently. But why should I bore you with such talk? Thank Heaven that your lines are cast in pleasant places. Yes, please, I will take one more glass; it does ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... Ashley was deeply immersed in those philanthropic enterprises which he had deliberately chosen as the occupation of his lifetime. Reform of the Lunacy Law and a humaner treatment of lunatics were the earliest objects to which he devoted himself. To attain them the more effectually he got himself made a member, and subsequently chairman, of the Lunacy Commission, and threw himself into the work with characteristic thoroughness. He used to pay "surprise visits" both ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... should once more wade in those swamps of logomachy and tautology in which the old guard of the Determinists still seem to be floundering. The question of Fate and Free Will can never attain to a conclusion, though it may attain to a conviction. The shortest philosophic summary is that both cause and choice are ultimate ideas within us, and that if one man denies choice because it seems contrary to cause, the other man has ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and twenty-six, on the eighteenth day of September, that I rendered up my soul to God, in sufferings. Pray God for me, ye who love art, that I may attain to His sight. Flee sin; turn to the best [objects]: for you must follow ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... strife and that she longed to have her scars healed by a practical man. Such a man he instinctively felt himself to be. In the fourth place, Bonaparte was a politician to the extreme of being unscrupulous. Knowing what he desired, he was ready and willing to employ any means to attain his ends. No love for theories or principles, no fear of God or man, no sentimental aversion from bloodshed, nothing could deter him from striving to realize his vaulting but self-centered ambition. Finally, there was in his nature an almost paradoxical vein of poetry and art which made him ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... not been for his dictionary and his grammar, which taught him the essence of all languages, and the natural subdivision of their component parts, he might have spent a life as long as Methuselah's, in learning words, without being able to attain to a degree of perfection in any of the languages."—Ib., p. 50. "Indeed, it is not easy to say, to what degree, and in how many different ways, both memory and judgement may be improved by an intimate acquaintance with grammar; which is therefore, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... December and during January, in a bed protected from frost, and may be transplanted into the open ground during February and as late as March. If we have a favorable season, and not too dry, they will be very fine; but if the heat sets in soon, the flowers will not attain the same size as those obtained from seeds sown in fall, and which ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... of everyday existence should be powerless against such lasting love as theirs. But where will the hearts be found whose beats are so nearly isochronous (let the scientific term pass) that they may attain to this beatific union? If they exist, nature and chance have set them far apart, so that they cannot come together; they find each other too late, or death comes too soon to separate them. There must be some good reasons for these dispensations of fate, but I have never ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... main building, while their clustered cupolas assist the general effect of roundness aimed at by the architect. Such a church as this proves how much may be achieved by the happy distribution of architectural masses. It was the triumph of the best Renaissance style to attain lucidity of treatment, and to produce beauty by geometrical proportion. When Leo Battista Alberti complained to his friend, Matteo di Bastia, that a slight alteration of the curves in his design for S. Francesco at Rimini would 'spoil his music,' ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... who after little travell attain'd his house (not pleasing thought desired) At whose late absence each one much did maruell, but (come) at his sad lookes they more admired, Great Cupids power, such sadnes in him bred, VVho (erst) all ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... told that if he would promise not to betray the robbers he might depart. He gave the promise; but added sadly that he had lost so much time that he was afraid he would not now be able to attain the object of his search and ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... a great delight to hear of the numerous societies, in various countries, working well and vigorously for that justice which for so long has been denied to women. The time can not be far distant now, when we shall attain the right of expressing our opinion by giving ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Valley is a very perilous place,—a place where none care to dwell, and which few attain to pass through. And here the Pilgrim was worse put to it than in his previous encounter with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... commenced her toilet with that feeling of pleasurable anticipation common to most girls of her age. Not that she failed to appreciate her own good looks, for she did not, but because in order to attain the desired effects she was forced to exercise a nice discrimination which can be appreciated only by those who have attempted to keep up appearances upon an income never equal to one's requirements. She had many dresses, to be sure, but they were as familiar ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... of every kind which hemmed in the life of young Lincoln, he had an instinctive feeling, born perhaps of his eager ambition, that he should one day attain an exalted position. The first betrayal of this premonition is ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... learn to repeat the most needed phrases. I soon acquired the alphabet, and could count up to any extent; I could spell Russian words much as a schoolboy goes through his 'first reader' exercise, but was unable to attain rapid enunciation. I could never get over the impression that the Muscovite type had been set up by a drunken printer who couldn't read. The R's looked the wrong way, the L's stood bottom upward, H's became N's, and C's ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the subject of 'Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except Graham bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried, he considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of health,—or that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his left temple should have healed. These pimples he looked upon as the last feeble stand made by the pernicious juices left from the meat he had formerly eaten and the coffee he had drunk. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... hopefully alive to all the possibilities of his peculiar position. It is true that natural disposition has much to do with one's outlook on life, but cheerfulness and a certain form of stoicism may be cultivated, and to the blind child these qualities are absolutely essential if he is to attain any measure of success in later life. It would be foolish for me to ignore the difficulties and limitations in the path of everyone deprived of eyesight, either in infancy or adult life, but I know that these very limitations and difficulties may aid in forming a ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... artist (who learns continually from his surroundings) astonishes his contemporaries, he can only attain ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... that they communicate with each other in the hand. Hence, therefore, it becomes evident, that in order to command, at once and effectually, a bleeding, either from the palmar arteries, or those of the forearm, we attain to a more sure and successful result, the nearer we approach the fountain-head and place a ligature on it—the brachial artery. It is true that to stop the circulation through the main vessel of the limb, is always attended with danger, and that such a proceeding is never to be adopted but as the ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... she continued: "If, after all, I was so ready to believe evil of you, it is that my instincts must have warned me of the evil that was ever in you. You have proved to me to-night that it was not you who murdered Peter; but to attain that proof you have done a deed that is even fouler and more shameful, a deed that reveals to the full the blackness of your heart. Have you not proved yourself a monster of vengeance and impiety?" ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... "But what I really want to know is what you propose to do to help me to attain a position in which I can educate my children as ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... evening. The farmer's friend, a dairyman, was riding beside him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer's man. All three were well horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to be well horsed was to be in better spirits about Long-Ash Lane than poor pedestrians could attain ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... close intercourse with her, and gave him opportunities of recommending himself. And not in vain. Eleanor saw and appreciated the cool, clear business head; the calm executive talent, which seeing its ends in the distance, made no hurry but took the steps and the measures surest to attain them, with patient foresight. She admired it, and sometimes also could almost have trembled when she thought of its being turned towards herself. And was it not, all the while? Was not Eleanor tacitly, by little and little, yielding the ground she fought so hard to keep? Was she ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... or no; and, if she was ever so stout, that circumstance would not prevent her from wearing half-a-dozen more skirts than was necessary, because that absurd and unhealthy practice has for a long period prevailed. Music is taught very generally. Though very few attain any great perfection in the science, a great many perform well enough to gratify their friends, and contribute to the enjoyment of a social evening. You will find a piano in every weathy Canadian's house, and even in the dwellings of most of the ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... adj.; manhood, virility, maturity full age, ripe age; flower of age; prime of life, meridian of life, spring of life. man &c. 373; woman &c. 374; adult, no chicken. V. come of age, come to man's estate, come to years of discretion; attain majority, assume the toga virilis[Lat]; have cut one's eyeteeth, have sown one's mild oats. Adj. adolescent, pubescent, of age; of full age, of ripe age; out of one's teens, grown up, mature, full grown, in one's prime, middle-aged, manly, virile, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... certainty of eternal sleep. That faith which enables some of us to tread this awful way with an utter confidence is not a wide prerogative, and, as yet, at any rate, it was not his, though the time might come when he would attain it. There are not very many, even among those without reproach, who can lay them down in the arms of Death, knowing most certainly that when the veil is rent away the countenance that they shall see will be ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... may die down and be known only in the history of literature. And books, again, of very moderate value, written by men of one-sided intellect or founded on somewhat shallow theories, may, by virtue of some special quality, or as embodying some potent idea, attain to a permanent place in the world of letters. Many a great book ceases very early to command readers: and many books continue to be read although ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... opportunity for having him assassinated, pretended to be in want of money, and borrowed large sums from those whom he chiefly suspected of designs against his person, so that he secured the safety of his person by taking other men's money, an object which most people are glad to attain by giving ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... Volumnius. Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep; Farewell to thee, too, Strato. Countrymen, My heart doth joy that yet in all my life I found no man but he was true to me. 35 I shall have glory by this losing day, More than Octavius and Mark Antony By this vile conquest shall attain unto. So, fare you well at once; for Brutus' tongue Hath almost ended his life's history: 40 Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest, That have but labour'd to ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... might say. "If you would have the goddess of Fortune find you, don't hunt for her." Do you imagine, when one has cherished but a single hope for fifty years, one could possibly have overlooked any means whatsoever within human reach, to attain that hope? First one turns cynical and then serious again. One tries to get there by scheming, one is once more a light hearted child, and again an earnest seeker after one's artistic ideals—not for ambition's sake, not for conviction's ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... recite only those wishes of the nation, which may be in our power to attain; I think they might be summed up ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... Jennie Tupper reach out and casually close over the offending pearl stud. He was saved, saved by the miracle of compassion and forgiveness that lifts women to those sublime heights where mere men cannot attain! ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... reverenced principles, he chose to deal with the concrete rather than with abstractions. He studied men rather than man." The words in italics imply an insight into the deepest springs of human action, the conjunct causes of what we call character such as few men of large experience can attain. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... one substantially, if not to its last detail, appears from the fact that an antipathy to Morus was hereditary in the Spanheim family, or at least in the eldest son, Ezekiel. As a scholar, an antiquarian, and a diplomatist, this Ezekiel Spanheim was to attain to even greater celebrity than his father, and his varied career in different parts of Europe was not to close till 1710. At present he was only in his twenty-fifth year, and was living at Geneva, where he had been born, and whither he had ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... all the defects of fortune; for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... attain extreme old age. At forty, most of them become gray haired, and covered with wrinkles; and but few of them survive the age of fifty-five or sixty. They calculate the years of their lives, as I have already observed, by the number of rainy seasons, (there being ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of spirit. They considered that they could think and live to better purpose without it. Henry had become its slave. He was his true self only when under the conditions of his slavery. He had toiled a few years longer than he should have done, to attain the ability to keep his head above the waters of life without toil. The mechanical motion of his hands at their task of years was absolutely necessary to him. He had become, in fact, as a machine, which ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... things of heaven and earth, By nature, too reserved. concealed From other minds of highest worth, To thee ate copiously revealed; Thou knowest them clearly, and thy views attain The utmost bounds prescribed to ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... companion in this office was his clerk, BLADAMS, who generally wrote at the second desk, and, consequently, was a person of another deskscription. A politician in former days—when he was known as Mr. WILLIAM ADAMS—this clerk had aspired to office in New York, and freely spent his means to attain the same. His name, however, was too much for his fortune. Public credulity revolted from the pretence that a WILLIAM ADAMS had come from Ireland some years before, on purpose to found the family of which the later candidate of the same name claimed to be a descendant; and, after an election in which ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... to the world that man can give, of his sincerity; that they serve to bind together into one compact and invincible phalanx the disciples of our common master, however in many things they may divide and separate. But, were it not better, if we could attain an equal good ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... I am speaking to many persons who, more or less constantly and courageously and earnestly, have laboured at the task of self-improvement and self-culture. I venture to think that, if their standard of what they wish to attain is high, their confession of what they have attained will be very low. Ah, brother! if we think of what it is that we need to make us good—viz. the strengthening of these weak wills of ours, which we cannot strengthen but to a very limited degree by any tonics that we can apply, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... all sleep, deposited together in the earth, why do men foolishly seek to treat each other injuriously? He who, after bearing this admonition, acts in conformity therewith from his birth onwards, shall attain the highest blessedness" (Ibid, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... bring the system of slavery to an end. I claim not that the predictions I present will be fulfilled. I only say, that if Abolitionists go on as they propose, such results are more probable than those they hope to attain. ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... dear children thus triumph over their difficulties and sufferings, but this is God's standard, and they may attain unto it, if, by faith, they will open their hearts and ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... died in their beds. Carbo put an end to his own life; the two Gracchi, Antonius, Drusus, Cicero himself, perished by the assassin's hand; Crassus was delivered by sudden illness from the same fate. It is not wonderful if with the sword hanging over their heads, Roman orators attain to a vehemence beyond example in other nations. The charm that danger lends to daring is nowhere better shown than in the case of Cicero. Timid by nature, he not only in his speeches hazarded his life, but even when the dagger of Antony was waiting for him, he could not bring himself to flee. With ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... looking too soft in the bright sunlight to have darts of death. All the shell-bursts seemed to be in a breadth of twenty or thirty yards. How could guns firing at a range of from two to five thousand yards attain ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... attain the outer door. Out of the drab recesses leaped dusky shadows. There seemed to be a large number of jostling men; perhaps only three or four were at hand by actual count; the insufficient lighting and their shocking and determined ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... text into small formatted chunks. All this information can then be imported into HyperCard and run on a mid-range Macintosh, which is what Perseus users have. This fact has made it possible for Perseus to attain wide use fairly rapidly. Without those archival forms the HyperCard version being demonstrated could not be made easily, and the project could not have the potential to move to other forms and machines and software as they appear, none of which information is in Perseus ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... in the dull Middle West. It carries with it an excuse to live in Washington, some social position there, and a title envied in Marion, Reno, Butte, or Salt Lake City. Senators who start young serve long and obediently, suppressing all their natural instincts for self-expression, and attain if they are lucky the scant distinction of a committee chairmanship in a legislature that has steadily tended toward submergence. To the House? Individuals are lost in the House. And the Presidency comes ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus." [118:5] This Tyrannus was, in all probability, a Gentile convert, and a teacher of rhetoric—a department of education very much cultivated at that period by all youths anxious to attain social distinction. What is here called his "school," appears to have been a spacious lecture-room sufficient ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... what it is that you say, Nigel," said she. "What you are to me only my own heart can tell; but I would never set eyes upon your face again rather than abate by one inch that height of honor and worshipful achievement to which you may attain." ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... furrowed by the channels excavated by modern rainfalls, have been found at the former height; and they are repeated, at intervals, lower down, until the Ghor, or plain of the Jordan, itself an alluvial deposit, is reached. These strata attain a considerable thickness; and they indicate that the epoch at which the freshwater mere of Palestine reached its highest level is extremely remote; that its diminution has taken place very slowly, and with periods of rest, during which the first formed deposits were cut down into terraces. This conclusion ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... upon the inner one—the latter being held by a ratchet and pawl-acting as a brake in lowering weights, while both would turn together in elevating weights. The idea is rather an ingenious one, but we are confident our inventors can attain a like object ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... quality or condition, no distance of other things can hinder your communion with them. There are several sizes and growths of Christians, both in light and grace. Some have extraordinary raptures and ecstacies of joy and sweetness, others attain not to that, but are rather kept in attendance and waiting on God in his ways, but all of them have one common salvation. As the highest have some fellowship with the lowest in his infirmities, so the lowest have fellowship with the highest ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... with the temporal and spiritual prosperity of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, etc. Dear reader, do not think that I have attained in faith (and how much less in other respects!) to that degree to which I might and ought to attain; but thank God for the faith which he has given me, and ask him to uphold and increase it. And lastly, once more, let not Satan deceive you in making you think that you could not have the same faith, but that it is only ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... close of the month I saw that it was impossible for me to attain my object in this way, and this conviction made me ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... preserve them from all sin. 'My Father,' He said, 'I ask not that You take them from the world, but keep them safe from evil.' If, madame, you pray for M. de Brinvilliers, let it be only that he may be kept in grace, if he has it, and may attain to it if he ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... than she had dared to confess to herself, and she resented this disposal of her with more obstinacy than any one knowing her gentle nature would have supposed her capable of; but M. de Puymandour was not the man to give up for an instant the object which he had sworn to attain. He never gave his daughter an instant's peace, he argued, insisted, and bullied until, after three days' contest, Marie gave her assent with a flood of tears. The word had scarcely passed her lips, before her father, without even thanking her for her terrible sacrifice, exclaimed ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... in its essence, yet organized in all its minutest parts—cannot attain its full stature unless it receives immortal food. The aliments of mere sensual life are for the body, and the mind's lowest constituents of being; and they who are content to feed on husks must sort with the common herd. I have higher aspirations, my husband! I see within and above the animal ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... philosophers so nearly attain to the goal of their highest earthly aspirations, and only failed in the consummation by reason of clinging to the existing ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... attain the highest graces of character, instead of plunging recklessly into the selfish ways of the world, is as truly obligatory for ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... of right and wrong, representing the honest man as no better than the thief, and the murderer as no worse than anybody else—teaching people in fact that the best thing they could do was to commit some terrible crime, in order thereby to attain to a better innocence than without it could ever be theirs. How far she mistook, or how far she knew or suspected that she spoke falsely, I will not pretend to know. But although she spoke as she did, there was something, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... symptoms of the recklessness which characterises the present impulse. Were the tone of commercial enterprise healthy, and kept within due bounds, there would be nothing of this; neither should we hear, as we do every day, of shares which, immediately after their allocation, attain an enormous premium, and, after having fluctuated for a week or two, subside to something like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... guerilla warrior. Indeed, the first seat below the gangway seems just as marked out by fate for such a man as Jimmy Lowther, as one of the high fortresses on the Rhine for the work of the bold freebooter of the Middle Ages. But for some reason or other, Jimmy did not attain his heart's desire, and he is compelled to sit on the front Opposition bench. This would not seem an affliction to ordinary men. Indeed, the desire to sit on one of the front benches may be regarded as the root of all evil in Parliamentary ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... worth that way, ere you attain'd This reverend garment, joins you in commission With the right fortunate soldier the Marquis of ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... if they could break down his evidence, the canal monopoly might yet be upheld for a time. Many years afterward, when looking back at his position on this trying occasion, he said: "When I went to Liverpool to plan a line from thence to Manchester, I pledged myself to the directors to attain a speed of ten miles an hour. I said I had no doubt the locomotive might be made to go much faster, but that we had better be moderate at the beginning. The directors said I was quite right; for that if, when they went to Parliament, I talked of going at a greater rate than ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... some of the erroneous passages, and the public naturally laughed at the bull prefixed to the first volume which excommunicated any printer who altered the text. This was all the more annoying to the Pope, as he had intended the edition to be specially free from errors, and to attain that end had seen all the proofs himself. Some years ago a copy of this book was sold ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... with the greatest affection and delight; but John's was a higher style of kindness, that entered into all her innermost feelings and wants; and his was a higher style of authority too, that reached where theirs could never attain; an authority Ellen always felt it utterly impossible to dispute; it was sure to be exerted on the side of what was right, and she could better have borne hard words from Mr. Lindsay than a glance of her brother's eye. Ellen made no objection to the imperativeness of her ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... habits of the Greek seamen, but also by their endless schemes and speculations, which are for ever tempting them to touch at the nearest port. The voyage too must be made in winter, in order that Jerusalem may be reached some weeks before the Greek Easter, and thus by the time they attain to the holy shrines the pilgrims have really and truly undergone a very respectable quantity of suffering. I once saw one of these pious cargoes put ashore on the coast of Cyprus, where they had touched for the purpose of visiting (not Paphos, but) some Christian ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... words—"This gentleman has been informed that his request is inadmissible as long as his second son remains at the school of Brienne. Two brothers cannot be placed at the same time in the military schools." When Napoleon was fifteen he was sent to Paris until he should attain the requisite age for entering the army. Lucien was not received into the College of Brienne, at least not until his brother had quitted ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and sensual goods; violent passions, urging the prosecution of what men affect; wrath and displeasure against those who stand in the way of compassing their desires; emulation and envy towards those who happen to succeed better, or to attain a greater share in such things; excessive self-love; unaccountable malignity and vanity, are in some degrees connatural to all men, and ever prompt them to this dealing, as appearing the most efficacious, compendious, and easy way of satisfying such ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... since, that here was the stronghold of his foes. 'Ah, how dearly,' he exclaimed, 'has man paid for the natural sciences!' Not but that Providence designed that man should know something about them; only it must be in due order. The ancients were not permitted to attain to much or even any sound knowledge of physics, indisputably above us as they were in force of mind, a fact shown by the superiority of their languages which ought to silence for ever the voice of our modern pride. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... which those others were advancing. To come to the summit again would surely expose them to those keen Indian eyes. They would be searching the trail ahead ceaselessly, noting every object along the crests of the ridges. However, if the passage around was not blocked with snow, they ought to attain the junction in ample time. With twice as far to travel, their ponies were strong and fit, and should win out against Le Fevre's starved beasts. He waved ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... as regards other nations, every regime except that of hostility. Her aim is domination, the only role which suits the people of God. Now, to attain that, two means are offered to her. The first plainly is intimidation which must never flag. The feeble quickly become insolent if their feebleness is not recalled to them. Other nations must feel themselves constantly threatened with the worst catastrophes if they ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... his sermons there occurred this passage: "We should habituate ourselves to hold our appetites in check. By constantly accustoming our selves to abstinence little abstinences in our daily life—we alone can attain to that true spirituality without which we cannot hope to know God." And it was well known throughout his household and the village that the Rector's temper was almost dangerously spiritual if anything detained him from his meals. For he was a man physiologically sane and healthy ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... unhappy. For her discontent with herself had by no means passed away. It had rather deepened as her study of the Bible became more earnest, and the strong, pure, unselfish life of which she had now and then caught glimpses seemed more than ever beyond her power to attain. When she tried most, it seemed to her that she failed most; and the disgust which she felt on account of her daily failures had been gradually deepening into a sense of sinfulness that would not be banished. She strove to banish it. She was indignant with herself because of her unhappiness, ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... proposed to open a complete water route between Tumen and Kiachta. The most eastern point that a steamer could attain in the valley of the Ob is on the river Ket. A canal about thirty miles long would connect the Ket with the Yenesei, whence it was proposed to follow the Angara, Lake Baikal, and the Selenga to Oust Kiachta. But the swiftness of the Angara, and its numerous rapids, seventy-eight ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the life and work of Simn Bolvar, the great South American Liberator, will attain their object if the reader understands and appreciates how unusual a man Bolvar was. Every citizen of the United States of America must respect and venerate his sacred memory, as the Liberator and Father of five countries, the man ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... philosopher, "at my possessing so simple a piece of information. It has cost me but little trouble to attain it, yet I would gladly hope that the labour I have taken in that matter may convince you of my real ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... one be found? I know not. In this age of degradation who knows the height of virtue to which man's soul may attain? But let us assume that this prodigy has been discovered. We shall learn what he should be from the consideration of his duties. I fancy the father who realises the value of a good tutor will contrive to do without one, for it will be harder to find one than to become such a tutor ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... each are special property which is kept secret from the others, and from the uninitiated members in the tribe. In order to become a member of a society of that kind secrecy is required and long apprenticeship. The novice rises slowly from one degree of knowledge to another, and only few attain the higher positions. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... reason to worry. In these wide seas empty of islands, it was no longer feasible to jump ship. Nor did we have any way to counter Captain Nemo's whims. We had no choice but to acquiesce; but if we couldn't attain our end through force or cunning, I liked to think we might achieve it through persuasion. Once this voyage was over, might not Captain Nemo consent to set us free in return for our promise never to reveal his existence? Our word of honor, which we sincerely would have kept. However, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... appalled by the confusion which still overspread his native land to evince much enthusiasm in this regard. "Wait a little, Maggie," he said, and Maggie was shrewd enough to understand that this was the better way to attain her purpose. She remembered how her husband had broken his sword and renounced fealty to the perjured King. Give Geoffrey time, and he would ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... for seals of different species do not usually resort to the same locality. The seal which formerly frequented the south coast of Africa—for it is, I believe, no longer a denizen of that region—was that which is known to naturalists as Arctocephalus delalandii, and, as adult males sometimes attain eight and a half feet in length, it may well be described as of the size of a bear. Cubs from six to eight months of age measure about two feet and a half in length.[4] The Portuguese caught anchovies in the bay, which ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... order to attain to these ends, the only means is to look another way, to turn all our thoughts to bring about a general peace, and to sign to-morrow the most solemn and positive engagement with the enemy, and, the better to ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... tense and eager. He hurried forward, drawing his companion with him, and side by side they began the mounting of the stone steps—those steps, flanked by the row of houses, that rise one above the other, as if emulous to attain ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... hope he might have been a prisoner, though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four and thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the true business of life, {35} that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency. Whosoever leads such a life needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Governments and the People were very desirous that Peace should be restored. But the Peace that was to be restored should be a lasting one, and that was the reason for the proposals being of the nature submitted by the Governments. They had come there to attain no other object than that for which the People had fought ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... and with his hopes and his courage he lost all his patriotic ambitions. In this juncture he was satisfied with the husks which the diplomats threw to Greece, and blustered and threatened war to attain a compromise which should keep him in office and in peace with the King, whom he would gladly have rid Greece of if ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... something better than this miserable pavement, where she could not even pick up the five francs which she wanted for the requirements of the next day. But there! In this infernal Paris, in this swarming crowd of competitors who all jostled each other, courtesans, like artists, did not attain to eminence until their later years. In that they resembled precious stones, as the most valuable of them are those that have been set ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... time when I was last in Egypt, looks like a thing stricken with some creeping malady—one of those maladies which begin in the lower members of a body, and work their way gradually but inexorably upward to the trunk, until they attain the heart. ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... improvement. I was particularly interested in observing Rosecrans's methods with the men. His standard of soldierly excellence was high, and he was earnest in insisting that his brigadiers and his staff officers should co-operate vigorously in trying to attain it. His impulsiveness, however, led him sometimes into personal efforts at discipline where the results were at least doubtful. He would sometimes go out through the camps in the evening, and if he saw a tent lighted after "taps," or heard men singing or talking, he would strike ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... two it seemed that the worst had passed, and that the violent motion was subsiding. It increased again and became as severe as before. None expected to escape. A sudden rush was simultaneously made to endeavor to attain the open-air and fly to a place of safety; but, before the door was reached all stopped short, as by a common impulse, feeling that hope was vain—that it was only a question of death within the building or without, of being buried beneath the sinking roof ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... to be afraid of, but everything to hope for. Granting that such a one does not advance, nor make an effort to become perfect, so as to merit the joys and consolations which the perfect receive from God, yet he will by little and little attain to a knowledge of the road which leads to heaven. And if he perseveres, I hope in the mercy of God for him, seeing that no one ever took Him for his friend that was not amply rewarded; for mental prayer is nothing else, in my opinion, but being on terms of friendship with God, frequently ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... out from under their haiks, and who were armed to the teeth with sabres, daggers, and, if possible, pistols and blunderbusses of all the worn-out patterns in Europe—some no doubt as old as the Thirty Years War; while those who could not attain to these weapons had the long spears of their ancestors, and were no bad representatives ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... argue in this way at the time! As I have said, I had no intention of ever acting again when I left the Queen's Theater. If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great work—then I was never an artist. I have been happiest in my work when I was working for some one else. I admire those impersonal people who care for nothing outside their own ambition, yet I detest them at the same time, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... judgments, but can never undermine them. Its own materials are the perceptions which if full and perfect are called beauties. Its function is to endow the parts of sentience with a consciousness of the system in which they lie, so that they may attain a mutual relevance and ideally support one another. But what could relevance or support be worth if the things to be buttressed were themselves worthless? It is not to organise pain, ugliness, and boredom that reason can ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... as military tribunes, began to be elected from the commons a few years before; nor had the Roman people been dissatisfied with any one of them. The consulate still remained for the attainment of the plebeians; that it was the bulwark, the prop of their liberty. If they should attain that, then that the Roman people would consider that kings were really expelled from the city, and their liberty firmly established. For from that day that every thing in which the patricians surpassed ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... which mark so many of the Boer-Hollander enactments are again apparent here. The proposal is made to appear reasonable, but it is clearly impossible for a child to attain within the time named such proficiency in a foreign language as to be able to receive all instruction in it. The effect and the design are to place English-speaking children at a grave disadvantage compared with Dutch-speaking children; either they would have to devote a great deal ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... Robbery conducted on so gigantic a scale as I have pictured must necessarily simulate the natural processes of finance, and to understand the deep devices of the schemers requires a knowledge of banking and commercial practices which the average man has no chance to attain. If I had begun my story by stating exactly what constituted the crime of Amalgamated, my readers would not have grasped its heinousness. In the chapters that I have devoted to leading up to it they have been educated in the piratical ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... my duty," answered De Walton, after a short pause, "to leave no stone unturned by which this business may be traced to the source; and if thou desirest mercy for thy son, thou wilt thyself most easily attain it, by setting him the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Turanian origin. From its Asiatic home it spread over the entire world—to the islands of the Pacific, and even America. The road that leads from barbarism to civilization is long and difficult, and it is not strange that but one or two families of men were able to attain that end by their own unaided effort. The Turanian Family, which probably advanced man from savagism into barbarism, seems to have at that stage exhausted its energies. This is but an illustration of the fact that ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... remembering that the necessity of gaining for myself the wherewithal to live has left me no time to exercise myself with any instrument but the brush. Nor even with that have I reached that goal to which I think to be able to attain, now that Fortune promises me so much favour, that, with greater ease and greater credit for myself and with greater satisfaction to others, I may perchance be able, as well with the pen as with the brush, to unfold my ideas to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... your breasts be straitened therefor and do ye hold and believe that if I abide with you and see not the beloved of my soul I shall perish of my pain while you be standing by to look upon my death. So suffer me to wayfare and attain mine aim; for from the day when my mother bare me 'twas written to my lot that I journey over wild and wold and that I see and voyage over the seas seven-fold." Hereupon he ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... their mere tool and slave. It was however possible to resist temptation, to cling to the side of right, to defy and overcome the deltas. Man might maintain his uprightness, walk in the path of duty, and by the help of the asuras, or "good spirits," attain ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... persistent effort on our parts. If we would be sure of what it is to suffer life's experiences in vain, we have but to ask ourselves what life is given us for, and we all know that well enough to be able to judge how far we have used life to attain the highest ends of living. We may put these ends in various ways in our investigation of the results of our manifold experiences. Let us begin with the lowest—we received life that we might learn truth, then if our experience has not taught us wisdom ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... contrary to the rules of the service; but we considered this an altogether exceptional case, and that you have amply proved yourself to be fully capable of carrying out the duties of any rank to which you may attain." ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... country appears, the soil is rich, so that its indigenous plants, of which there are no great variety, attain a very large growth. Several kinds of berries, particularly raspberries and black currants, of an enormous size but watery taste, are met with in ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... units reached 48.8 percent. Summing up his command's policy on integration, Gruenther concluded: "I cannot permit the assignment of large numbers of unqualified personnel, regardless of race, to prejudice the operation readiness of our units in an effort to attain 100 percent racial integration, however desirable that goal may be."[17-86] A heavy influx of white replacements with transportation specialties allowed the European Command to finish integrating ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... That all ought to do, I know, because their principles, as will be clearly seen, lead to such a character. Those, therefore, who do not, will see their own deficiency, or how much they have yet to attain, before ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... noble, by the name of Don Francisco Sumulay, a very near relative of Malong, was living in Bolinao, a village within our administration. On account of that relationship he looked upon his progress as his own, and helped him as much as he could to attain his purposes. He, in order to incite Bolinao and its environs to revolt, spared no effort that he considered fitting. But the father prior, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios (or Blancas), opposed him openly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... the United States is in effect that congress of sovereignties which good men in the Old World have sought for, but could never attain, and which imparts to America an exemption from the mutable leagues for common action, from the wars, the mutual invasions, and vague aspirations after the balance of power which convulse from time to time the Governments of Europe. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... almost surrounds Boston Bay, protects it in like manner from the winds, more especially those coming from the west and southwest, in which directions some of the hills attain the height ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... illustrate the past, if he cannot again create within himself the sympathies and the motives which led to the deeds he must celebrate. Wo be to him, we say—for as sure as there is truth in the retributive justice of posterity, he will attain an eminent position, not in the roll of beatified bards, but in that of the British blockheads, and be elected by unanimous consent as a proper Laureate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... danger disappeared and even assumed an opposite character—that of a preservative against emotions which I no longer wished to know. One duty more in my life, already so full of and so overburdened with work, appeared to me one chance more to attain the austerity towards which I felt myself attracted with ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... disadvantage in this wandering life of mine; for I am perpetually undergoing the process of feeling miserable and lonely in a new place, and more miserable and lonely still when I leave it. The room I have here is gloomy, but opens into my bedroom, which is comfortable, and I shall soon attain the easy liking ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... has been subjected to many displacements, both flexures of the monoclinal type and faults. Some of these flexures attain a length of over 80 miles and a displacement of 3,000 feet, and the faults reach even a greater magnitude. There is also an abundance of volcanic rocks and extinct volcanoes, and while the principal eruptions have occurred about the ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... ambition, no love, no pleasure. Only one thing continues to exist, not intact, but morbid and fine-drawn, in these men uprooted from the East, worn out by the amount of energy they have had to give out for centuries, longing for quietude, without having the power to attain it: thought, endless analysis, which forbids the possibility of enjoyment, and leaves them no courage for action. The most energetic among them set themselves parts to play, and play them, rather than act on their own account. It is a strange thing that in many of them—and ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... natural guardians of their children, are obliged to provide for their support and education during their minority, or while they are under twenty-one years of age. At twenty-one they attain the age of majority, when they are said to be of age. Under this age they are, in law, infants, or minors. The father, if he is able, is bound to support his minor children, even if they have property of their own; but in such case ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... the crater, my will is the snow, Which yet may extinguish its volcanic glow. When self is once conquered, the end comes to pain, And that is the goal which I seek to attain. ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... there was an important condition attached; for the testamentary document ordained that should the Lady Nisida—either by medical skill, or the interposition of Heaven—recover the faculties of hearing and speaking at any time during the interval which was to elapse ere Francisco would attain the age of thirty, then the whole of the estates, with the exception of a very small one in the northern part of Tuscany, were to be immediately made over to her; but without the power of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... procure the necessaries of life, while she looked back from afar with an envious eye at the brilliant world from which she had been exiled, and longed for better days. All hope was not at an end for her. By a strange law which does not speak well for human nature, vice finds success easier to attain than virtue. There is no courtesan, no matter how low she has fallen, who cannot find a dupe ready to defend against the world an honour of which no vestige remains. A man who doubts the virtue of the most virtuous woman, who shows himself inexorably severe when he discovers ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... democratic liberty a band of aristocrats who had little thought of applying to their own land the principles for which they were ready to fight in America. Over some of them hung the shadow of the guillotine; others were to ride the storm of the French Revolution and to attain fame which should surpass their sanguine dreams. Rochambeau himself, though he narrowly escaped during the Reign of Terror, lived to extreme old age and died a Marshal of France. Berthier, one of his officers, became ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... been, through the Tribune, a recognized factor in moulding public opinion, and now that war had come to absorb all other interests, his power and influence through the press had waned. He was wholly impracticable in executive matters. His failure to inaugurate a peace and to attain prominence in administrative affairs during the war embittered him through life towards his ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... keep me from denouncing him to the police, till by a sudden stroke of fate or Providence, I saw him in the carriage with Miss Althorpe, and realized that he was not only the man with whom she was upon the point of allying herself, but that it was to preserve his place in her regard and to attain the lofty position promised by this union, he had attempted to murder me, and had murdered another woman only less unfortunate and miserable ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... alone. Craig, eyeing his bride covertly, had a sense of her remoteness, her unattainability. He was like a man who, in an hour of rashness and vanity, has boasted that he can attain a certain mountain peak, and finds himself stalled at its very base. He decided that he must assert himself; he tried to nerve himself to seize her in his old precipitate, boisterous fashion. He found that he had neither the desire to do so nor the ability. He had never thought ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips |
